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If Sarri gets out of this and gets us firing again, their will be a hell of a lot of back tracking on here.

Bit like the back-tracking that is happening now (or more like the deathly silence) from those that were hailing the genius back in July last year and how he didn't need money to spend on players as he would work with and improve the players we already had

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Never been a fan of sacking a manager after just one season unless it's a complete and utter meltdown of a season. Talking like relegation stuff here.

That's a fair view and if he was more pragmatic against stronger teams than us that play better possession football or are set up to counter-attack expertly I would agree.

Yet I feel if we go out of all competitions so early the players will lose motivation and we will fall down the table and the combination of bad feeling in the stadium and the financials of losing sponsorship and season tickets will prove too much.

The timing has been awful since trying to do this in w/c cup year when you get your manager so late in the day.

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Bit like the back-tracking that is happening now (or more like the deathly silence) from those that were hailing the genius back in July last year and how he didn't need money to spend on players as he would work with and improve the players we already had

It's difficult to predict anything. He did improve players in Italy. Here it's difficult because every thing is short term focused. Over time I am confident he would improve SOME players, but the players also need to improve themselves. It's not like Solsjkaer at Utd where Pogba was crap under Jose. Pogba was already world class, but he just needed to be given the freedom which the previous manager didn't allow, for whatever reason. I still have no idea what Jose did at Utd.

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Bit like the back-tracking that is happening now (or more like the deathly silence) from those that were hailing the genius back in July last year and how he didn't need money to spend on players as he would work with and improve the players we already had

I don't hear anyone back tracking, i just hear people saying he needs longer, and others saying "well conte did it straight away" ...without considering conte had a world class striker and sarri had Morata.

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I don't hear anyone back tracking, i just hear people saying he needs longer, and others saying "well conte did it straight away" ...without considering conte had a world class striker and sarri had Morata.

I would support normally giving a Manager time to work with his players. But the difference between Conte and Saari is that Conte recognised we had issues and was quick to change players/formation to address that.

Saari has sadly proved that he has created one team, and appears incapable (or too stubborn) to change it even when its plainly obvious its not working efficently.

Hes also very nieve, we thumped lowly Huddersfield so he then picks the same side plus the same formation for the next game away at Manchester City. Worse still, even when its obvious to everyone that Jorghino is getting overrun in midfield and not protecting the defence, he refuses to change the set up so a 6-0 thumping was inevitable

We are going nowhwere with Saari, and its now quite obvious why he has won nothing in his Managerial carreer. Replacement Manager will be immediately more successfuly because of the rebound factor (Like Solsjaer at Utd) and the simple things like dropping underperforming players (Jorginho and Alonso) and putting players back where everybody else agrees they should have been in the first place.

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I don't hear anyone back tracking, i just hear people saying he needs longer, and others saying "well conte did it straight away" ...without considering conte had a world class striker and sarri had Morata.

When a fair number of us were very sceptical about the Sarri appointment, there were those who were saying what a revelation he will be and of course after the good start were lauding how much better things were than under Conte. THOSE folk have now gone very quiet - although as you say, some are still saying he should be given more time.

IF Sarri does manage to turn things round, I will happily eat all the humble pie available. Never thought he was the right appointment and right now I think he's in danger of making a bigger mess of things that I ever imagined possible (with the help of The Board). I honestly would like him to be a success, I don't want the revolving door of coaches in, coaches out but I just can't see it happening and I'll be surprised if he is still here come the Fulham game on the 3rd March.

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When a fair number of us were very sceptical about the Sarri appointment,

So before he even started he was on a uphill journey with pessimistic supporters weighing him down. The same supporters that waited for the first 5-6 months, waiting for their time to say..."see we told ya" !

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I would support normally giving a Manager time to work with his players. But the difference between Conte and Saari is that Conte recognised we had issues and was quick to change players/formation to address that.

Saari has sadly proved that he has created one team, and appears incapable (or too stubborn) to change it even when its plainly obvious its not working efficently.

Hes also very nieve, we thumped lowly Huddersfield so he then picks the same side plus the same formation for the next game away at Manchester City. Worse still, even when its obvious to everyone that Jorghino is getting overrun in midfield and not protecting the defence, he refuses to change the set up so a 6-0 thumping was inevitable

We are going nowhwere with Saari, and its now quite obvious why he has won nothing in his Managerial carreer. Replacement Manager will be immediately more successfuly because of the rebound factor (Like Solsjaer at Utd) and the simple things like dropping underperforming players (Jorginho and Alonso) and putting players back where everybody else agrees they should have been in the first place.

I am a bit tired of this view.

Conte never changed his formation. He always kept 5 at the back. He maintained Bakayoko in the team until the bitter end. It was so painful. Sarri is just a slightly more extreme version of Conte in his stubborness.

Just because Conte changed formation after 6 games, doesnt mean he reacted or adapted. He just let the team fail before he brought in his own style. Then he persisted with it for the next 2 years.

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So before he even started he was on a uphill journey with pessimistic supporters weighing him down. The same supporters that waited for the first 5-6 months, waiting for their time to say..."see we told ya" !

But that's the same for most coaches - they have to PROVE themselves.

Different if you are a Pep or Jose and your record speaks for itself. Different for a 60 year old relatively unknown who has done very little of note and that is why many of us were sceptical and seems right now we were right to be.

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I think the surprising thing was given the shorter pre-season due to the World Cup, the late arrival of Sarri and the meagre new arrivals of Jorginho and Kepa given a new playing style that we started so well.

His failing appears to be reluctance to change when the rest of the league has worked us out. Even Pep did this with dropping John Stones.

This could turn worse than Wenger at Arsenal in those last few seasons.

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Conte never changed his formation. He always kept 5 at the back. He maintained Bakayoko in the team until the bitter end. It was so painful. Sarri is just a slightly more extreme version of Conte in his stubborness.

Just because Conte changed formation after 6 games, doesnt mean he reacted or adapted. He just let the team fail before he brought in his own style. Then he persisted with it for the next 2 years.

Now remind us of Conte's achievements in the game and compare that to Sarri's.

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Conte never changed his formation. He always kept 5 at the back. He maintained Bakayoko in the team until the bitter end. It was so painful. Sarri is just a slightly more extreme version of Conte in his stubborness.

Just because Conte changed formation after 6 games, doesnt mean he reacted or adapted. He just let the team fail before he brought in his own style. Then he persisted with it for the next 2 years.

I will agree with you that Conte became erratic in his last season, but during the Premiership winning season 16/17, he definately changed formation when he realised against Arsenal it wasnt working.

If Saari recognised his Teams shortfalls and made changes I would be happier, but he seems happy to persits in the vane hope it will miraculously start working properly, which it wont, and he will destroy the confidence of the players if he continues to do so.

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Conte never changed his formation. He always kept 5 at the back. He maintained Bakayoko in the team until the bitter end. It was so painful. Sarri is just a slightly more extreme version of Conte in his stubborness.

Just because Conte changed formation after 6 games, doesnt mean he reacted or adapted. He just let the team fail before he brought in his own style. Then he persisted with it for the next 2 years.

Why would he change something that worked so good the most teams in the league started to use a back-three all of a sudden? And won him the league in his first season here, and the FA-cup in his second?
The system wasn't the issue with Conte.

And he didn't maintain Bakayoko until the end either. That's just bollocks.

Conte won two big titles in two years here. What has Sarri won? Nothing.

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He maintained Bakayoko in the team until the bitter end. It was so painful.

Who else was he supposed to pick? We sold Matic and Chalobah in the summer and Drinkwater was injured for large parts of the season.

Fabregas was available but the title winning season showed that Conte didn't see him as an option for the midfield two preferring to use him mostly as a sub and playing him in a more advanced position when he would come on.

5 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

He just let the team fail before he brought in his own style. Then he persisted with it for the next 2 years.

"Let the team fail" would imply he wanted the team to lose? He had a short pre-season so he went into the first season using a formation that the team were familiar with to try to lessen the disruption... When the 4-2-3-1 was clearly not working with Ivanovic and Terry in particular struggling in the back four he switched to his favoured formation of 3-5-2 improvising with Moses as a wing back and Dave as a centre back. Despite it looking like square pegs for round holes it worked because it played to strengths of most the players and helped compensate for their weaknesses, especially Luiz at the base of the back three.

Saying he "persisted with it" for two years is suggestive the formation didn't work... But it did, it won us two trophies.

Conte would tweak and change things, especially in losing situations. He would go two up top. He would push Pedro to wing-back and use him as an attacking outlet but also bring in an extra attacker.

He was definitely a lot more tactically flexible then anything we've seen from Sarri to date.

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I will agree with you that Conte became erratic in his last season, but during the Premiership winning season 16/17, he definately changed formation when he realised against Arsenal it wasnt working.

If Saari recognised his Teams shortfalls and made changes I would be happier, but he seems happy to persits in the vane hope it will miraculously start working properly, which it wont, and he will destroy the confidence of the players if he continues to do so.

Everyone knew Conte liked 5 at the back. He used it at Juve, he used it for Italy.

We started the season wondering if he would play 5 at the back. He signed players that would fit that system. He didn't.

We got tanked by Arsenal and he then played his system. The only difference with Sarri is that Conte didn't change from day 1. Many speculated that he didnt change from day 1 because he wanted the team to be bought in to the change. I wouldnt credit Conte for being a flexible coach by changing a system away from one he didnt like to one he had used for the last 3 years. That's what I meant.

Sarri is far too persistent for me and that is why he should go. But he isn't the opposite of Conte. Conte I wanted to go in January of his last year, he was poison to our club. Sarri is just stubborn and a bit weak.

In two seasons at Chelsea he won the PL and got to two FA Cup finals, winning one of them. And is still not yet 50.

Sarri also did well at previous clubs. Sarri didnt rely on his playing career to get a job. Conte won the league - that was great. He found a tactical flaw in a weak league that had Leicester as defending champions and no competition. The FA Cup means jack all, he won one game to win the FA Cup. We played United in the final and won with a penalty. Sarri is 90 minutes away from winning the Carabao Cup which GENUINELY would be a bigger achievement than winning a cup by beating Man United and erm, Southampton.

Im not saying Sarri is a better coach and I think he should be sacked. I just hate this idea that we shouldnt have sacked Conte and now this weird revisionism that he was a great manager for us and was a creative genius by changing to 5 at the back. He was a twat for that second year and in my opinion he fought hard to get sacked. That second season was awful and he made it worse.

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Well Conte changed the initial system because it wasn't working to a completely different system that did work, which is pretty much the definition of effective flexibility.

﻿ In fact the second system worked that well pretty much the entire league then copied it.

I completely agree that he was a twat in that second season though. After the Tottenham game I was screaming for his head.

But Sarri changed the system that wasn't working (Contes that got us into 5th) and the change worked (we were challenging for the title in November!). If he was managing in 2016/17 when City, Liverpool, United, Arsenal and Tottenham were all not up to much, we'd have been sitting top of the league in December and who knows, maybe have kept it up.